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Is diesel train for dinosaurs?

He's a frequent flyer, but media executive Raymond Girard admits he's also a bit of a rail buff. but Girard isn't convinced Toronto even has the density to support the
airport service. That it will be diesel strikes him as backward.

Freelance travel writer Amy Rosen, who says the airport train makes sense but only at the right price, often takes the TTC subway and Airport Rocket bus. (VINCE TALOTTA / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Tess KalinowskiTransportation Reporter

Mon., Oct. 12, 2009

He's a frequent flyer, but media executive Raymond Girard admits he's also a bit of a rail buff.

Girard enjoys riding European airport trains such as London's Heathrow Express into the city, where he can easily walk or take the subway to his hotel.

"I'm a bit of a cranky traveller, especially if I've been on an overnight flight. The last thing I want to do is deal with a taxi driver," he said.

Girard, who usually drives to the airport from his home near Avenue Rd. and St. Clair Ave. about 40 times a year, might sound like a natural client for the proposed express train service from Union Station to Pearson, which the government has contracted to Montreal engineering giant, SNC Lavalin.

He is, in fact, one more skeptic of the project, which got a green light from Ontario's environment minister Oct. 5. Girard, like many well-travelled Torontonians, wonders why Ontario hasn't followed the international trend to electric trains.

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Freelance travel writer Amy Rosen wonders the same thing, though she takes a different approach to getting to the airport.

Rosen, who averages two air trips a month, hires a car service from her Little Italy home when she has an early flight. But when she has the time and only carry-on luggage, she also uses the TTC's Airport Rocket from the Kipling subway station. She also takes local transit when she lands in other cities. "If something like that's available, you'd be an idiot not to (use) it if it's that cheap or that simple," she said.

Rosen – unlike many of our politicians – isn't convinced the lack of a train link to the airport is a gaping hole in the city's amenities for travellers. Still, if Toronto wants one, why would it be diesel?

"If you could go electric, why wouldn't you?" she said.

Criticism of the air-rail link and expanded GO service on the same line has centred on the increased air pollution that will come from running more than 400 diesel trains a day on a densely populated rail corridor.

Environment Minister John Gerretsen approved the $1 billion project on condition that it uses cleaner Tier 4 diesel trains, technology still being developed.

Girard isn't convinced Toronto even has the density to support the airport service. That it will be diesel strikes him as backward.

"It drives me bananas that GO is all diesel and they're talking about (taking) 15 years to electrify the Lakeshore (line). Diesel doesn't have the cachet of European rail systems," scoffed Girard.

Electric trains are cleaner, quieter, more efficient and can accelerate faster, an important consideration. The problem is the cost. The locomotives are pricier, and then there's the cost of stringing overhead wires along the track.

Unlike India, Japan and China, Ontario remains mostly diesel. Earlier this decade, the province passed up the chance to buy cheap electric trains after a project in Mexico was cancelled, according to Greg Gormick.

"In North America, we are behind. It's always been for the same reasons: the availability of cheap oil," said Gormick, a rail consultant whose clients have included Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of GO.

This continent's vast geography makes hanging wires along rail lines prohibitively expensive, according to Richard Soberman, former chair of civil engineering at U of T, who now works with the TTC. Then there's the problem of providing power: Electric trains get their juice from hydro substations, unpopular in residential areas.

At the far end of the GO line, though, Georgetown residents are rubbing their hands in anticipation of all-day, two-way service, says Halton Hills Mayor Rick Bonnett.

"I thought electric trains might have been the way of the future. But it's still better than taking your car, so it's still a step up," Bonnett said.

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